Proving Ourselves

Prince Harry is not going to Iraq after all.
Yolanda King - MLK's firstborn - dies at the age of 51.
Owensville - the short film our very own FBC worked on - debuts at Cannes today.

A woman I know reminds me - almost every time I have a conversation with her - that her husband went to Fancy Business School and her children are graduates of Fancy Prep School. She tells me about her famous neighbors and her international travels and her distant relative who won a Nobel Prize. I've heard this resume-by-association many, many times. The last time she retold these things to me I said: "You know, I would love you even if none of those things were true." And I really meant it.

I used to believe that once children grew to adulthood, they also grew out of the need to seek the approval of others. I was completely wrong about that. We spend our lives trying to prove ourselves.

We can't possibly imagine what it's like to be the royal "spare" as in "an heir and a spare" -- Diana's gift to the United Kingdom when she gave birth to the 2nd and 3rd in line to the British throne. It seems that Prince Harry has found a purpose and a challenge in military life. But officials have deemed a tour in Iraq too dangerous. Insurgents have openly threatened to target him for kidnapping or assassination.

It's even less possible to imagine what it was like for Yolanda King to lose her father at the age of 12 to an assassin's bullet, and then spend the next 39 years known to all the world as The Daughter of . . . while every move was watched. Can any of us imagine having a federal holiday named for our father? (Or finding flyers for MLK Day White Sale at Sears! in our newspapers every year on the third Monday in January?)

It's interesting to me that not one of MLK's four children ever married or had children. The burden of carrying that legacy, that name must be - and for Yolanda must have been -- crushing.

We are proud of our children's and our achievements. But we are still valuable without them. I am slowly learning this.

I admit that I still care what other people think about me. But I'm increasingly more concerned with what God thinks.

Best advice I received in seminary: Always fear God more than your scariest parishioner.
Best news around: We are loved whether we deserve it or not.

Nevertheless, I'm telling everybody about Cannes. Even though I'd still love our FBC if it wasn't happening.